


How to Save a Life

by biggrstaffbunch



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggrstaffbunch/pseuds/biggrstaffbunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis is a space captain and Harry is on to his tricks. [AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Save a Life

  
“Here’s the thing, Louis.” Harry begins, and he thinks it’s rather good on him, how pragmatic he’s kept the tone of his voice, considering the rope.  Ah, correction: considering the rope he’s currently _tied_  to and _swinging_  from.  “You think you’re a lot cleverer than you necessarily are.”

There is a gasp of outrage from the man swinging on a line of rope next to Harry. “I’m devastatingly clever,” Louis informs Harry in a frosty voice. “Appallingly.”

“Appalling is a good word,” Harry agrees, and grins at the look of wounded dignity on Louis’ face.

Down below, a pit of bubbling something-or-other seethes as the villain of the month--an alien monk with six eyes--makes a number of predictable threats.  A veteran of such scenarios, Harry remains unperturbed. Instead, he kicks out his leg, lightly prodding Louis in the side with his trendily-booted foot.

“You’re one of those geniuses,” he starts thoughtfully, and Louis brightens at the word genius, “that has absolutely no common sense.”  Louis’ face falls.  “So, even though you’ve rigged a paperclip to single-handedly save a tiny little Z’ardolian tribe from certain doom, we still get sacrificed to the village monster, ‘cause of that one time you insulted the sun deity’s toupee.”

Louis looks put-out. “Hair is important,” he tells Harry with a sniff.  His fringe falls rakishly over one bright blue eye. “It’s why you love me.”

Harry rolls his eyes and kicks his leg again, foot skimming Louis’ shin. One ankle hooks with Louis’ and they sway gently, linked.

“One of many reasons,” Harry says grudgingly, and means it, despite the braces and rolled-up trousers and general mayhem that surrounds Louis like cologne. “Just, you’d think after a couple years of being a planet-hopping space pirate, you’d have learned some tact.”

“Oh, Haz,” Louis smiles brilliantly, teeth bright. “I do have tact. Ask people. Er, most people.” He makes a face. “Well, some people. Somewhere. I’m sure. But! In fifteen different interstellar languages, I’ve got loads of tact. In Z’ardol, though, especially the conjugated verb forms, some of the more subtle nuances are lost, and...”

Harry laughs, then. Unable to help himself, full of the oddest sense of deep contentment, he dangles from a platform that towers above a cavern of boiling lava, moments away from being eaten by a space monster that breathes fire. And he laughs.

Because it’s Louis, and it’s Harry, and even after so long, if it’s them together then it’s always fantastic.

Still, though.  Harry thinks determinedly of the life waiting for him back home on Earth, away from this latest (accidental, but aren’t they all?) adventure of kidnapping and petty theft and near death.

“And another thing,” he sighs, tongue poking out as his fingers begin to burrow into the ties around his wrist, “If you’re gonna keep leaving me in Holmes Chapel because I’m too young and pretty to be traveling with you, try not to make it seem so final every time. It’s embarrassing, is what it is, treating us like star-crossed lovers when your ship just _happens_  to pop ‘round like, monthly.”

He glares, but there’s a playful note to his voice as he says, “Gonna start calling you Stalker Spice, I think.”

Louis doesn’t argue. Instead, he smiles crookedly. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I really do try to stay away?” he asks, looking rueful.

“Never.” Harry flashes a glittering grin his way. “Anyway. It’s better with two, don’t you think?”

Louis looks uncharacteristically serious for a moment as he agrees. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, it really is.” Then, more determinedly, “Only now I have to think about how to get us outta this jam...”

Harry shakes his head, cuts him off. “I have a plan,” he says confidently. Then, ropes sufficiently loosened, he makes use of his upper body strength and holds on for dear life. “‘Scuse me!” he calls down to the monk, who’s been occupied till now with making dire threats about boys with too much hair and their obscenely tight trousers. “Uh, yeah, sorry to interrupt all the--gesturing and whatnot--but humans, we need to go to the loo periodically!”

Louis looks politely horrified. “Harry,” he hisses. “What are you doing? No, don’t--”

“Shut it, you,” Harry answers serenely. Then, again to the monk, “The _loo_. It’s where we--” here, he wriggles his arse around violently, “--you know.”

Now the monk has joined Louis in polite horror.

Harry growls. Idiots, the lot of them. “Not _that_ ,” he says severely. “Louis, how do you say bathroom in Z’ardol, and this time, conjugate as if your reputation as a real-life Han Solo but with better jumpers depended on it.”

Louis tells him. Harry promptly makes his request, and then with rather disappointing ease, he is levered down to the cavern below, presumably to be escorted to a bathroom facility before his untimely death.

As soon as his feet touch the floor, Harry takes a running leap at the monk.

Turns out, the sun deity’s not the only one on Z’ardol who wears a toupee.

“Wow, that was great form, Harold,” Louis shouts at him as they run towards Louis’ ship. Behind them, a small herd of monks are running with their robes up around their knees--a tragic display of immodesty, as Louis had primly informed them before he and Harry began to run for their lives.

“Thanks,” Harry wheezes, legs pumping. “Been practicing my jog and jump. Comes in handy when I’m around your disaster-prone arse!”

He flashes a wild grin and Louis throws his head back, laughs loud, hand flinging out to catch Harry’s as they run faster.

“My arse is perfect,” Louis retorts, wind whipping through his hair as they crest a small hill, sighting Louis’ ship in the distance. Harry looks at Louis from the corner of his eyes, is struck by how beautiful and dangerous he looks, haloed by the smoky air and saluting jauntily over his shoulder at the advancing monks.

Not to make a cliched allusion or anything, but if the setting fits: Louis’ a bit like the sun, burning bright and hot and too large to be ignored.

He’s the sun because he’s the thing that makes everything around him tilt their faces up and grow and become bigger than they are. He’s the sun because he’s the reason Harry always seems to leave behind his comfortable life in an affluent little village on Earth, ready to take giant leaps of faith and traipse across space, going from planet to planet and discovering alien races and treasures and generally causing mayhem across the universe. If it weren’t for Louis, Harry might still be the drooping little weed he was during uni, bored and alone. Now, though--he reckons there’s something green and vibrant about himself, and that’s all down to the way Louis is. The way Louis makes him better.

Because when the sun crash lands in your back garden on a sleepy February afternoon, snow dusting the hull of his ship and the sky a wavering, portentous gray....you don’t say no.

And if along the way, Harry found himself snogging the sun a little too often, and if the sun started getting tetchy and nervous and kept dropping him off back on Earth and coming back when the sun got lonely (which was _always,_ the stubborn prat) well.

That’s okay. Because probably the sun is a little afraid of burning itself out, and Harry can understand. Sometimes the force of his own feelings are frightening, too.

“Here we are,” Louis says. With a flourish, Louis stops, entwined hands still clasped between him and Harry.

Pointing at his ship, Louis aims a remote control and with a beep, the doors of the great steel beast part slowly. At the foot of the hill behind them, the monks are slowly but surely catching up.

“Welcome to the SS Red Line,” Louis says, catching Harry’s eye and giving a shy grin.

The tattoo on Harry’s wrist, a thin red line, tingles for a moment. If he were to push Louis’ sleeve up, he’d see a twin tattoo, vivid scarlet and symbolic of an old Chinese tale that they’d heard in the market stalls on a planet on the outer Rings.

“Nice name,” Harry says casually, around the lump in his throat. “Something about fate, if I recall.”

Louis shrugs, not looking away. “Maybe that’s why I can’t stay away,” he says lightly. “Maybe sometimes I like the reminder that no matter how far I fly, you’re still with me.”

He tugs Harry close then, kisses him hard on the mouth, with all the force of a supernova. Heat explodes in Harry’s gut, and then Louis breaks away, gives a dashing wink, and says: “You saved my life back there, Styles. As a boon, I, Captain Tommo, will let you travel the wicked space seas as my first mate. What say you?”

Harry shakes his head, laughing because he knows his answer--he’s always known his answer.

“Alright, Cap,” he responds. “But on one condition.”

Bracing themselves as the ramp unfolds, they jump aboard the ship, doors closing slowly behind them just as the outraged faced of the monks come into view.

“I don’t wanna be first mate,” Harry says when they’re safely on the bridge, leaning in, eyebrow tilted rogueishly.  “I wanna be _best_  mate.”

With a whirr, the ship hovers, then takes off. His eyes on the horizon and arm slung over Harry’s shoulder, fingers playing with the curls at Harry’s nape, Louis smiles.

“You already are,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Used to be a series, but never got around to finishing the third story and didn't care for the first, so I deleted it and have put this as a stand-alone!


End file.
